Firecrackers
by Izu3039
Summary: Onseshot AU. A boy loses his immediate family and finds refuge with the kindest uncle he has. Desperate to protect the last thing he cares about, he still believes in the beauty of firecrackers.


A/N: Oneshot AU. Hong Kong's first-person POV. Originally written for a description for a pet from a breeding sim, but it was actually based off Hong Kong so I decided to post this here with some edits. :) If they are OOC, sorry, just had an idea in my head. ^^;; Read and review!

Summary: A boy loses his immediate family and finds refuge with the kindest uncle he has. Desperate to protect the last thing he cares about, he still believes in the beauty of firecrackers.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia, sadly for me.

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><p><strong>Firecrackers<strong>

I never really knew why. I thought they were beautiful things. Sometimes dad would take them away from me and scold me for having them. Though I always managed to get some more and light them in my backyard when he was out. Don't take this the wrong way, I loved dad. It's just that he had different views from me. Watching them explode in a flurry of lights was breathtaking, and no matter how small it was I still sneaked out every night to light one.

It was the only thing I really looked forward to anymore. School was terrible. I was teased and bullied, singled out just for a mistake I made. I never told dad about how my lunch money was stolen and so I went hungry that day. When I came home I covered the injuries with my late mother's old make up set and wore long sleeves and pants all the time.

I didn't want to hurt him anymore ever since mom died. But maybe it was my own selfish desire to keep him working. Of course I didn't want to work. I'd rather just leave my lunch money home for the day since it was going to be taken if I did, and used that money to buy more firecrackers.

But dad, my single father, always worked. After some time, he came later and later home till I never saw him come home anymore. I wanted to hug him and tell him to stay home for a day and rest, but we were tight on money and I guess he had to work. Maybe that was a mistake on my part. I should have just quit school to help him work, it was no good anyway.

One day, he collapsed from a heart attack. A day later, pronounced dead. I didn't cry. I had promised my five year old self not to cry ever again ever since mom died. Getting thrown around from relative from both sides of the family to relative hurt me, and every time I switched schools it didn't help me at all, just because I was different anywhere.

Until I got passed onto one uncle named Kiku. He looked so much like dad I was a bit surprised. He was just much younger and a little over six years older than me. His attitude was so similar too and so much kinder than he rest of the people who took me in and threw me out, so he actually kept me for a very long time. He didn't even mind my sexual orientation when I told him, fearing he would disown me like a few others.

I loved firecrackers, and even now still set one off every night. This uncle was quite tolerant of these unlike dad, even liked them. Because of that I found myself waiting for him to come home, then watch the spark together with him.

I found myself watching him come home later and later just like dad did. I was determined to set things right and actually quit school this time, and found a job in a factory. To my luck, it was a fireworks factory. Assembling these beauties I loved so much was great for me, and I didn't understand why uncle would be so worried for me when I loved firecrackers. He tried to dissuade me, but I refused to switch jobs. At least he came home earlier now as we set our daily firecrackers together. I worked hard to make sure that uncle wouldn't suffer like dad did.

I never understood his reasoning until the freak accident occurred. One day as we toiled on the machinery and assembled the countless firecrackers, there was an explosion from across the room. Five boys around my age were killed, and twenty or so were injured. What did the factory do? Had the machinery fixed as quickly as possible and set the rest of us to work again, just one day break from that mistake. It was the last I heard of those boys who had gotten injured. They were fired immediately, and soon twenty more boys came to work.

Why was the system so cruel? I came crying to uncle that day, and that day we forgot to set the fireworks. Only the day after I had realized I had broken my promise.

Sinking into depression, I quit my job and didn't touch the pile of firecrackers hiding under a blanket I had thrown into a corner. Uncle was worried about me since I dragged myself around and stopped lighting firecrackers, so I tried to at least put up a semblance of normalcy. Somehow I managed to get a job as a store clerk.

Until the war came. He literally begged me on his knees not for me to go, but I really didn't feel my life was worth much anymore anyway, so I decided to enlist. The feeling of heavy cold metal in my hands never went well with me. The first battle, I had just fired a single shot that didn't even hit its target. The explosion was fresh in my ears, and for some reason I broke down. Gunpowder was used in firecrackers, wasn't it? But firecrackers were beautiful, yet this desolate and meaningless fighting was not. Neither was the coldness of the fireworks company.

It was rash to do so, but I ran across recklessly the battlefield and nearly got killed by a bullet straight in my shoulder. Luckily for me, they shipped me home for my injury, and though the scar never left me, I wasn't crippled at all.

Though it was unnerving. After all the practice training we had gone through and the actual battle I had fought in, I think I developed post-war trauma. I jumped at any little noise, and my uncle was yet again worrying about me. He was, at this point, the only thing in the world not corrupted to me, and I was desperate to keep it that way. I forced myself out of skipping meals and gained a bit of weight back. Somehow my luck kept on and I found yet another job as a store clerk. I even managed to calm my nerves down a full year later from the trauma.

There was nothing I loved more than my uncle, and nothing was in my interest anymore except making him happy even if I had to lie (which actually made him more unhappy if he knew). I was the son he never had and he was the only one who would accept me anymore. Except the occasional neighborhood boy that caught my eye, I didn't really have much to look forward to.

Maybe that one day when we decided to go visit dad's grave was when I finally got my courage and life back. He somehow knew it was a touchy subject, and never took me to visit the grave every year. Just one year when I was twenty-eight and he was thirty-four I actually spoke up and went along with him. It made him smile so I didn't regret it.

I don't know how he knew, and I will never know. Somehow staring at dad's resting place right next to mom's reminded me of how much he didn't like firecrackers. I wanted him to see how beautiful they were, but I was too afraid to touch them for the past few years and so I didn't bring any. Uncle simply pulled a string of a few from the car, and we lit them together.

_Yao Wang- a loving husband, father, and brother who gave up his life to support his son. 19xx-19xx_

_Alice Kirkland- the best wife you could ever wish for. 19xx-19xx_

Surely even if firecrackers were deadly, both in the greed of society and the still-ongoing war, the ones in front of us then were the most beautiful ones I'd ever lit. Probably since I had set a purpose besides just watching for beauty.

I learned to love them again, and soon uncle and I set them off every day like we used to, and every year we pay just a little more for a larger one to show dad at the grave. I knew mom would love them.

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><p>AN: Yes, England is the mommy since I wanted Japan to be the uncle. xD And I didn't intend on pairing Hong Kong with anyone, just mentioned he was gay to explain why he was picked on.

Reviews are loved. ^^


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